Features Barrels for Wine

From the time of the Romans in France generated a large volume of sales of wines and created the need for transportation to be as effective as possible. It was then that the knowledge of high quality French oak wood Cuba devised the unit volume as the barrel, the content is 225 liters.

The reason for the wood to use was the oak because this to be cut has a structure that breaks the core radial rings, and other trees, but wood is more compact, have no medullary rays in oak is vitreous and impervious and prevents mold from forming organisms such as altering the taste of wine.


In addition to French oak, is also used American oak barrels for manufacturing, but in this breed wines are harder and aggressive.

It is very important for the production of curing a barrel oak wood to use. This wood has to air dry for at least nine months and not getting any moisture so that when in contact with the wine is not crack.

The wood is in contact with the wine must be subjected to a roasting process and is done by heating, this can be roasted: Light, Medium, Medium Plus and Heavy. This process changes the texture of wood and has a large impact in the first few cycles of use of barrels for wine.

According to experts, the maximum time for a wine in the barrel should be no more than a year because the concentrations of compounds that gave the wood to the wine are between 10 and 12 months and if left longer The aroma of a wine starts to decrease.

There is a widespread and erroneous idea that says that the older the oak barrels used, more mature wines. But recent studies have shown that barrels over five years almost unrelieved wine volatile compounds are what give the aroma or bouquet and also have high concentrations of ethylphenols that are bad for the aroma of wine.

From this we conclude that the time that wineries keep their wines in barrels (6 months upbringings, a year and 18 months reserves gran reserva), are not based on scientific studies as it has been shown that after 12 months, the aroma of wine is stagnant or even declining.